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Hello my Cannabis loving friends! Today we're embarking on a new grow adventure sponsored by Royal Queen Seeds (big shoutout to @James and the RQS team 🙌). I'm growing the new Apple Fritter Automatic strain. This strain comes from two impressive parents Sour Apple Auto and Animal Cookie, which promises a fruity, sweet and hard hitting offspring! This is one of those strains where you wish you had a Monopoly-like shortcut "Go straight to harvest", but since this is reality we'll have to settle for nurturing this lady for 12 weeks 😅.
In this grow I'm trying out the new soil plugs provided by RQS to germinate my seed. Before I germinated in a paper towel, and when the seed popped I placed it in a RootIt soil plug to let it grow further. In the RQS soil plugs you can germinate the seed directly which is very convenient, plus I don't need to fiddle with a tiny seed and fragile root to place it in the soil plug. The hole in the soil plug is just big enough to place the seed. After placing the seed I sprayed the soil plug until it was moist, and placed it in the GTools growbox to start germination.
Link to soil plugs: https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/growing/535-soil-plugs.html
Apple Fritter Auto by RQS: https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/autoflowering-cannabis-seeds/629-apple-fritter-automatic.html
The easy boost nutrition worked out very well in my last Titan F1 grow, so I will use this during the grow as well. I hope you will enjoy this diary!
Mid-week update: Now that the seed has fully germinated I placed the soil plug into the final 15L airpot. I have to say I had my doubts if the seed would germinate in the tiny opening in the soil plug, but sure enough, it germinated perfectly. After 4 days the pen root had already reached the bottom of the soil plug. This will be my preferred way of germinating seeds from now on 😎
The Apple Fritter is off to a flying start 🔥 After germination the plant developed very fast. It looks healthy and happy in the GTools under the Sanlight. I dimmed the Sanlight to 40% and I'm planning to turn it up to 60% later this week. Stay tuned for more updates on this little fritter.
The Sanlight is now dimmed up to 60% and it clearly shows as the Apple Fritter is growing nice and fast. Internodes are also short which is great as I prefer the plant to stay compact.
At the end of week 1 it's amazing how fast the little Apple Fritter is growing. We're already at the third node, the leafs are quite large and the stem looks strong. The clipfan is on most of the time, providing a steady breeze. The lower leafs have a few brown spots, my guess is this is due to light stress from the growlight hanging too low for the fragile leafs.
Amazing how fast the Apple Fritter is growing 👌 It's just the start of the second week and she already has three internodes, side branches and a strong stem. Of course the conditions in the G-Tools growbox are optimal and with the light schedule on 20/4 she has all the solar power she needs. But still, a very impressive strain sofar. I will share more pics later this week, so follow along ☘️🌿
Hey growmies!
So even though I enjoy a challenge when growing Cannabis, it's also nice when a plant just grows like crazy and looks super healthy 👏 This Apple Fritter doesn't ask for much, and just keeps on growing fast and vigorously. The side branches are getting thicker by the day, and the lower ones are almost ready for the LST clips from RQS. They worked out very well for me in the last grow. Minimal stress for the plant and it just gives the lower branches that much more light by bending them outwards. Stay tuned for more pics and updates later this week ✌️
🌿🌿🌿 Mid-week update
I applied the LST clips to all of the large side branches, bending them outwards. After a little while the branches had already grown upwards again, but as a result they receive more light. The Sanlight is now at 100% and I raised it to 40cm above the plant to make sure we don't get any light burn. It might be my imagination but I thought I saw the first signs of bloom. That would be very early in week 3, but hey let's see where is goes!
🌿🌿🌿 End-of-week update
After reading an interesting article about the Yuccah supplement I decided to add it to the mix. It claims to improve both drainage in compact soil and also water retention in dried out soil. This would solve the issue that happens in the end of every grow. After 10 weeks the soil tends to get really compact. Also the Yuccah should have a good interaction with the bacteria and fungi in the soil. Let's see how this affects the plant's growth and health!
The Apple Fritter is already showing signs of blooming in the beginning of this fourth week 🙌 She's really fast and growing vigorously. The internodes are getting a bit longer which is probably due to the beginning of the blooming stage. The leafs are hanging a bit so I will ease up on the watering. Thanks to the airpot she won't drown so quickly but she doesn't like wet feet (who does?), and I don't want to slow her down.
The top branches now also have LST clips. This really opens up the plant and greatly improves airflow. Stay tuned for more pics and updates later this week 🌿✌️
🌿🌿🌿 Mid-week update:
The lower leafs are turning yellow. It's something I noticed before with autoflowers on Bio Tabs. Most of the time this is fixed by giving the plant some Compost Tea to top-up the nutrients. I'll watch her closely for the next few days to see wether the Compost Tea is sufficient.
Hi growmies! This is week no. 5 for the RQS Apple Fritter Automatic and it's doing really well. Last week she grew more than 20cm, which probably asked a lot of nutrition and led to some deficiencies. Luckily I always have some Bio Tabs Compost Tea to top up the nutrients. In addition, because the leafs were turning yellow, I added some Biobizz Cal Mag to the mix. This was exactly what she needed as now the leafs are no longer hanging, and the color has turned to a slightly darker green.
I don't see any changes in the soil structure since I started with the Yuccah nutrition. Then again, it's also not having a negative effect so let's just stick with it (10ml per week) and see if it does something in the long run. Sometimes it slips my mind that soil always acts as a buffer so any changes in nutrition take some time before the effects are visible.
The Apple Fritter is slowly growing it's many buds. I removed the lower branches with popcorn buds so she can focus all her energy on the upper branches. There was a little bit of light burn on the upper leafs so I raised the growlight to 30cm above the main cola. The nutrition scheme is still the same as last week, but I'm gradually lowering the humidity as the blooming phase progresses. It kind of feels like the plant is slowing down and not much is happening, but then again it has a lot of buds that need to fatten up. Let's see how it develops in the coming week. Stay tuned for more pics as the week progresses ✌️
🌿🌿🌿 Mid-week update
Just when I thought the growth was stagnating the Apple Fritter picked up the pace! The buds along all the branches have grown a lot the last couple of days and they're fattening up 👌
As we're entering the fourth week of bloom I wanted to try the Van Gogh's Master Miracle C bloom enhancer. I got it as a tryout package and going from the description it can give the plant the extra support it needs during blooming. As I noticed before this plant grows really fast, so let's see what happens when we supply it with some additional nutrients. The buds are growing bigger each day now. Last week it did not seem to do that much, but now I see that it was just ramping up for a sprint 🚀. With still 3 to 4 weeks to go I'm very curious to see what flowers we will end up with.
The smell is not that distinct just yet. Let's see if it starts producing trichromes and terps this week 🤞
Yes! The Apple Fritter is beginning to produce trichromes along the sugarleafs and the sweet smell is filling the growbox 👌 Last week looked like the buds stayed the same size more or less, but today they looked a lot fatter compared to last week. Some of the tips of the lower leafs show signs of nutrient burn, so I'm going easy on the Van Gogh's bloom booster this week.
🌿🌿🌿 Midweek update
The trichromes are starting to show on the sugar leafs, and with it comes a delicious smell. It's sweet and strong, and with four weeks to go at least I'm really excited to see what it will look like by then. Beside a few burnt tips she looks happy and strong. I raised the Sanlight a bit higher to prevent the tip of the main cola from burning/bleaching. No risk of the plant stretching at this point and the light is so intense it still reaches the lower buds.
The Apple Fritter is developing a beautiful main cola and the smell is already amazing. It's sweet mostly, and also a little bit of flowers. The fan leafs still show signs of nutrient burn, I'm not a 100% sure though, as it also could be the first signs of autumn. I try to keep the humidity low as the buds are really compact. There are a few families of black flies nesting in the soil. It's not dangerous for the plant at this stage but I will use some nematodes this week to keep them from spreading too much. Stay tuned for more pics later this week! ✌️
🌿🌿🌿 End of the week update:
My carbon filter is having a really hard time keeping the smell inside the growbox! It's autumn outside and inside the growbox, leafs are turning yellow and the plant enters the final weeks before harvest. I still manage to keep the humidity below 50%, let's hope there's no budrot this round 🙏 . Upon inspection with the microscope I found mostly milky trichromes! So if all goes well she could be harvested in about a week.
Hello my cannabis loving friends, I guess this is the final week before harvest for the Apple Fritter ✌️ Almost all of the trichromes are milky and the plant is reaching it's full potential. Strange thing that there are still a few white hairs on the buds. I hope these will turn orange in the coming week. The leafs are turning yellow and start wilting a bit. The buds are still fattening up each day and the smell is really strong and sweet.
🌿🌿🌿 Mid-week update
I decided to wait at least for another week to harvest the Apple Fritter. The buds are swelling up more by the day. She still has many white pistils so who knows how much fatter the buds will be in a few days? It looks like this lady still has a lot of potential and it would be a shame to harvest too soon. In the autumn/winter my growroom is very dry (30 - 40%) which is ideal in this stage to prevent mold. In the GTools the humidity is somewhere around 35%. Stay tuned for more updates ☘️
First off, I want to give a big shoutout to James from RQS for giving me the opportunity to try this strain. It was exciting as there were not that many diaries of the RQS Apple Fritter and I really enjoy trying new strains. The grow was a breeze from germination to harvest. If you want to try this strain its important to top-up the nutrients as she's quite hungry 😋. That also shows in the end result I might add. The main cola was massive, weighing 90 grams by itself. The total wet harvest was 444 grams, an excellent result for 7 weeks of blooming. I was in doubt wether to harvest her already but the trichromes started to tun amber so I guess it was time after all.
Last but not least, a shoutout to my growmies for supporting and following this diary. Sharing the experience with other cannabis lovers just makes the whole experience so much better
Zengrower
